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Lovers In A Dangerous Time

LOVERS IN A DANGEROUS TIME (May Charters, Mark Hug). 100 minutes. Opens Friday (April 6). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN


This feature has the whiff of a vanity project – the filmmakers are the stars, writers, editors and just about everything else – but it’s more than that. It’s got likeable characters, a clever framing device and a great premise. Too bad it just misses.

Todd (Mark Hug) and Allison (May Charters) have known each other since they were three years old, growing up in a small BC coastal town. When Allison returns after losing her book illustration job, she and Todd try to sort out their ill-defined relationship.

Todd, in the meantime, copes with the insecurities of being the older brother of hockey superstar Bobby (Mark Wiebe, far outshining his novice co-stars), eking out a living as a cherry picker even as filthy-rich Bobby offers him a whack of cash.

These are believable situations, some of them quintessentially Canadian. But just when you think the stakes will get raised – drunken Allison and Todd consider hooking up, the boys get physical at a pickup hockey game – the script goes slack.

In an attempt to deal with the inadequacies in the writing, one sequence by the water has obviously been reshot and dubbed. And the sound is dreadful.

The device of seeing the childhood Todd and Allison in flashback is very effective. And Allison’s drawings are used as a narrative frame in very smart ways.

None of those strategies, however, can make up for mediocre filmmaking.

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